Beauty Influences-Continued

Anime Women

My parents were friends with a family who owned a small video rental store, and when they went out of business, we were given boxes upon boxes of VHS tapes. We aquired a lot of crap, but we also got some really great gems, among them a fairly decent if small collection of strange anime videos. I probably watched these the most of any others.

I didn't discover how truly perverted and awesome anime/manga/etc. was until I was a bit older, so for me, anime chicks meant one thing: amazing hair.

Anime chicks are the reason I keep growing my hair out to ridiculous levels. It's imprinted in my brain, there's no other way.

The Female Centaurs in Fantasia

I don't know how young I was when I first saw Fantasia, but it is one of my earliest indelible memories. Who wouldn't want to be a hot centaur chick with pink hair bathing in the waterfalls of a magical land? 

These nipple-less chicks were the most beautiful thing my young eyes had seen. Unfortunately, the whole living-in-the-forest-being-waited-upon-by-delightful-creatures doesn't really yield the same results as these pretty lady-horses got.

Juliette Lewis

Juliette Lewis was the next star waif (after Kate Moss) that captured my admiration and made me have more confidence in my own slender figure. Juliette will always be one of my favorite actresses, as one who does white trash particularly well.

I've always loved Juliette's aesthetic; she has a youthful look about her even as she ages, which is what allows her to pull off the trashy persona. 

Monica Bellucci

Why are there not more GIFs of this woman?

If I had to pick a Queen of Beauty, the shining star I look up to the most, it's gotta be Monica. I don't know that there's a better example of ridiculous gorgeousness than Ms. Bellucci.

She's modeled forever as well as been in a ton of films, a lot of them indie and/or foreign, but every now and then she'll have a part in a major movie and I get to grab the unsuspecting people I'm with screaming "YOU GUYS!!! THAT'S MONICA BELLUCCI!! SHE'S MY BEAUTY ROLE MODEL!!!"

Salma Hayek

In the early 90s, I was in my room flipping through an Elle when I came across an interview and pictorial of Salma Hayek. As a young bisexual girl, Salma was one of the first chicks I can remember that stirred my loins, as well as made me want to peel her skin off and wear it as a suit.

Salma had the honor of being the first woman whose picture I ripped out of a magazine and pinned to the wall, along with the male metal bands, actors, and sports players that made up my usual eye candy. 


There are a world of great quotes from this pretty lady, but I chose this one to end with:

In my world, you have to be so beautiful, so skinny, so rich, so famous and I don't believe you really have to be any of those things. You simply have to be who you are. I do have thighs and a butt. I have cellulite. Don't be too impressed with me. Don't try to dress like me or wear your hair like mine. Find your own style. Don't spend your savings trying to be someone else. You're not more important, smarter, or prettier because you wear a designer dress.

Beauty influences aren't women to copy, they're women to inspire and cause ripples of creativity that allow us all to experiment and explore who we are and how we want to present ourselves. That's really how fashion should be used: as a means to express ourselves---not conforming to beauty ideals that don't represent who we are.